MacKay's Joy Ride Not a One Of, But Part of Conservative Culture of Entitlement

I love the above cartoon from the Montreal Gazette.  Brilliant.

Did he or didn't he?  Only the prime minister knows for sure.  Give me a break.  Do they honestly expect us to believe that this was the first and only time this government used our military as their own private airline?

It first came to our attention in 2006, when Harper and the boys used a military jet to fly to a hockey game.  Harper defended it by saying that he paid for his own tickets.  Gee, really?

By 2007, we learned that the hockey game was not the only recreational event charged to the taxpayers' credit card.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been flying in military jets to Conservative events and even a hockey game — despite having once railed against their use by the previous Liberal government.  Invoices obtained by the Canadian Press show Harper flew Challenger executive jets three times in 2006 — and the Conservatives only fully reimbursed the military for one of the flights, which are estimated to cost more than $2,000 per hour.

By 2009, the hourly rate skyrocketed and so did the abuse.

The Harper government says it is unable to provide the names of passengers who have flown on its fleet of Challenger executive jets since 2006 because it would take longer than a month-and-a-half to assemble the list.  The jets, operated by the Department of National Defence, have made more than 1,900 flights with the prime minister, the governor general, cabinet ministers or other senior officials aboard since the Conservatives formed the government. The aircraft logged 9,916 hours in the air over that period. (Tories silent on who flew on executive jets. Compiling list to take too much time, By Glen McGregor, The Ottawa Citizen, November 19, 2009)

DND was unable to provide the information because Harper refused to allow them to record the names of the people who were flying around at our expense. Far too easy to match them to donor names, I suspect.

However:  'DND did release figures that show that the average cost of feeding passengers has increased sharply since the Tories formed government."

Nothing is too good for the king and his entourage. 1900 joy rides by 2009, and we're worried about one helicopter trip?